A Core Theory of Delay Systems

Abstract

We introduce a framework for the description of a large class of delay-differential algebraic systems, in which we study three core problems: first we characterize abstractly the well-posedness of the initial-value problem, then we design a practical test for well-posedness based on a graph-theoretic representation of the system; finally, we provide a general stability criterion. We apply each of these results to a structure that commonly arises in the control of delay systems.